nocto

classic cartoon:

mark my words: this “dewey decimal system” will be the death of literature.

[found via as above]

the sci.math circular logic faq, among other amusing things at a treasury of mathematical humour.

it’s national slacker day again.
the day before the last bank holiday before christmas (urgh) seems hardly
the time to put this event on though. it’s a slacking day by default.

Slacking isn’t just about doing nothing but an ethos of re-framing things so you can enjoy what you do.

The vast potential of broadband has so far benefited nobody as
clearly as it’s benefited downloaders of pornography and pirates of digital
content

faster email? faster software downloading (legal, free,
paid for)? faster web browsing (non pr0n)? getting your work done faster
because you don’t wait for each page to download? permanent net connections
simplifying your online life? have the people who make these sweeping statements
(in this case
peter chernin, president of news corp who own 20th century fox and fox television)
ever been on the internet? pornography and piracy were prevalent when we
all still dreaming about speedy 14.4k modems.

Peter Chernin decried the “enormous amount” of worthless content online.

so he doesn’t have a problem with pornography, which is one
of the few types of online content that people are willing to pay for, or
with piracy, which is generally when things which are worth something are
exchanged for nothing. neither of these is “worthless” as far as i can see.

oh no, some of dickens’ original manuscripts have been stolen. i’m glad to see that martin chuzzlewit isn’t among them else i’d begin to suspect that jasper fforde’s characters were behind it. (i don’t seem to have mentioned the martin chuzzlewit bits of the book my comments on the eyre affair)

why object oriented programming is just like writing a trashy western novel:

   maurice.drinkWhiskey();
   System.out.println(maurice.howDrunkAmI());
   maurice.tieUpDamsel(mary); 

dodgy programming, but a neat concept in explanations.

[found via camworld]

i thought i hadn’t had many new fivers
through my hands. i didn’t realise that i should be collecting them rather
than squandering them. they were withdrawn after a week because the serial
numbers could be rubbed off. how did i miss that?

it’s interesting reading what anthropologists think about something you know well. i never knew the pub
was such a mine of coded language and complicated customs. i still don’t
think that pub etiquette is quite as complicated or tourist unfriendly as
it’s portrayed here but most of it seems to be along the right lines to me.

the guide puts a spotlight on things i’d never even thought of.
i didn’t realise how much we avoid talking about the fact that we pay for
drinks (but we do avoid it). i especially like the who drinks what
section which lays out a hierarchy of who gets to drink the widest range of beverages
in a pub. working class women top the hierarchy being able to drink nearly
anything except pints and working class men are at the base of the hierarchy
being almost unable to drink anything but pints. middle class women are
constrained from ordering some of the more sickly drinks that their working
class counterparts can get away with and middle class men can drink more
wine and spirits than theirs.

Female pint-drinking, however, is now acceptable, particularly
among students, the under-25s and the aristocracy. Among students, our researchers
found that females often felt they had to provide an explanation if they
ordered a half rather than a pint.

i’m not a student or under-25 or an aristocrat (though i guess i’ve been
in two out of three categories) and happily drink pints of bitter without
turning anyone’s hair, switch to halves without explanations and drink other
things (wine, spirits, weird coloured bottled things, hot chocolate….)
when they’re what i feel like. this titbit is however exceedingly good
pub advice:

Whether you are male or female, and whatever the sex or
social background of your native companions, the words “It’s my round – what
are you having?” will always be appreciated as a friendly gesture. This line
may not be in your phrase book, but it is one of the most useful sentences
in the English language.

what i really need now is a similar guide to dealing with french bars.
how do you get served speedily but still get to sit on the terrace? (you
wait ages
for a waiter and since the prices are lower for drinking at the bar you can’t
just go and get them in yourself) how do you get the waiter to come back
within forty five minutes? (we’re used to british law that says it takes 20
minutes to sup a pint so we’ve supped our french slightly less than halves
in under ten minutes) is it rude to sit at a table and wait to be waited on
when there is only one barman working and people inside the bar? how much
should you tip when you’ve only bought a €1.40 25cl kronenburg? i’d like
answers to these and many more questions like them.

[found via kottke.org]